Biggest Weakness of Ali and SRR?

They both shared a technical weakness.

They were susceptible to a left hook when they pulled back.

 

Brilliant thread, I love talking about the weakness`s of great fighters,get`s right to the point. Leonard left his lead hand low after jabbing something Dundee never liked his fighters doing, I saw on a film study how many times Hearns and few others caught Ray with counter rights which could be harsh because of Tommy`s reach but Mayweather is the counter right king and that`s what the film study was identifying. It been said that Ray would go through large periods of a round not punching and flurry at the end of a round to win it. Hearns and Benitez used their jabs often to stop Ray starting an offense but he did find a way to win and against Hearns he started to walk though Tommy using his gloves to deflect blows making him harder to hit with counter rights plus he was throwing less jabs because he was in the pocket often and he wa great inside. Futch said the reason Norton had so much success vs Ali in their first bout is because he told Ken to jab with Ali, Muhammad started everything off with the jab you could disrupt him by countering as he jabbed Futch mentioned that Frazier messed up Ali`s jab with jerky head movement bobbing and weaving off key so his head wa hard to read and that Ali couldn`t throw an uppercut properly so when did his body was in an awkward posture and he was open to the hook. Ali also didn`t throw enough body shots. What do you think?

 

I seen a film study saying Ray was open to the hook but I never really seen him get hit with many! Ali was better at pulling back when he was slimmer, he lost weight for the second Cooper fight because he was undertrained for the first meeting and got caught with THAT hook, in the second he dealt with it brilliantly a heavier Ali would have been caught more.

 

Ali's weakness was Ken Norton.

 

Do you feel if Ali was in the form he was for his greatest performance against Cleveland Williams that his extra speed would have helped him? He looked more trim for their second match but got tired and started to struggle, do you know his weight for that match or his weight for the Williams match, I only know Ali`s weight for the second Cooper fight was 214 lbs, he lost weight for that fight so his footwork could be quicker.

 

He was 212 for both. Only around 205 lbs for the Cooper rematch, though.

 

Wow! I find that shocking! Why did he look so quick against Williams?!

 

Because hes M Ali.
Williams was shot in the stomach a year before the fight.

 

I watched a film study on the Williams fight by Wilson Kayden and he described it as close to perfection in a ring as you will ever see!

 

Mark ant acording to the late great angelo dundee we never saw Ali at his best. I guess this is the closes we saw Ali at his best.

 

I think that all fighters that pull back are susceptible to the hook.

It is the one punch that is almost impossible to time when you pull back.

 

He was just a physical freak in his prime. He was about 215 against Chuvalo and still looked fast and graceful as hell.

 

Ali , didn't punch to the body,wasnt a good inside fighter.Robinson slack defence.

 

I suspect Ali's declining reflexes in the seventies had more to do with the early stages of Parkinson's syndrome than age or weight. Ali was only 32 in 1974 and yet the difference in he how moved compared to ten years earlier is absolutely night and day. This might also help explain how Ali was able to give Berbick a close fight almost two after being made to look like a mummy against Holmes. While age is not reversible, Parkinson's can be (in the short term) with medication and/or natural fluctuation in the severity of symptoms. (An alternative explanation is that Berbick just couldn't bring himself to go all out.)


Ali's obvious weakness (putatively) is that he's supposed to be somewhat featherfisted, but I wonder how much truth there is in that. Didn't Liston say somewhere that he felt misled about Ali's punching power? (Or *did* he say that? Anyone got a source?)

I heard George Foreman say once in an interview that Ali and Holyfield hit about the same, which really surprised me but maybe shouldn't.